Hacking away at thoughts

I'm 36. This fall I feel a little bit like the grown up. I've had kids for 13 years. Sorry kids.

At the same time, my greatest success as a teacher and parent has come from letting go of "being the grown up."

These ideas that ancient traditions discuss, there's reality there.

Pride born out of brokenness is one of the major problems in our world.

The only way to win a war is to kill all of your enemies. All of them. This is the biggest reason they shouldn't be fought.

In Star Trek, do people on earth all get along as a result of having formed an planetary identity as humans?

Holidays are hard for me. I'm starting to learn this. I don't understand how people are supposed to enjoy each other. This is a mountain I need to climb.

There are 14,000 ft peaks to conquer in the minds of our children. Depths to dive into in their hearts. Many, many children are lacking good love in their lives.

Life is sweet, in spite of the misery.

I do not understand affiliations. I do not understand allegiances to faith, race, culture, ethnicity, etc., etc...

I often hope that I'll know when it's my time to die. I hope that I'll be old. I hope that I'll have the opportunity to just walk into Yosemite and die in the arms of the earth. I hope my children will understand.

I should be doing homework and grading right now. I'm drinking a beer instead.

I've learned about 300 new names in the last 4 months. That's not an exaggeration.

I really do want to record an album.

On hell and justice

In hell, I sit in a mostly dark room while Maggie wails a crappy Miley Cyrus song at the top of her lungs while said song blares out of the stereo. All the while, Lennon struggles to play a baseball bat guitar while Rigby tries desperately to eat it; screaming ensues. After that, Maggie turns off the stereo to give a (pretty good) rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. Then she tells me how the Boy Scout down the street shed tears of joy when she performed it for him.

I'm in hell, right now.

So President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize today. He hasn't done anything measureable to earn it, but as the day has gone on two things have occured to me. First, I voted for him based on hope and potential when he didn't even have a full term in Congress by which he could be judged. I was good with that then, and I'm good with it now. So why should I begrudge an international body (or at least a Norwegian body) the opportunity to reward him for the same hope and potential. It's certainly not a bigger deal than electing him president.

Which led me to another conclusion. Why don't we value vision and potential more? I was recently passed over for a job (as most of you read earlier) that I had no experience in, despite having been told that my vision was "eloquent and inspirational." Much of the hoopla surrounding Obama's receipt of the prize is rooted in the question, "What has he ACTUALLY done?"

It occurs to me that you cannot measure hope or inspiration. You can't document how a simple change in mood can enable change and progress; or it can derail it. Empowerment and belief in doing are paramount! I don't know what America looks like to the rest of the world, but if they say that Obama has given them new hope in us then I'm not going to say differently.

So I hope that I can always be the type of person who rewards passion, who gives vision an opportunity to become reality. It's much more fulfilling to be moved to achieve than to be sized up for a box someone else has labeled "Success." Cheers Barack! And may this be a heavy burden on your leadership, to answer the call for continued hope, and continued peacemaking.

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
--John Lennon